Little bit more information. There are two USB connections. One is the built in cable that you can see with the plug that fits in the strap. This is used for upload with the included USB cable extension. There is another USB connection that needs a special cable ( not included) that is used for uploading to portable USB drives or the Sony direct to DVD recorders. This plug is behind the same cover for the Memory Stick and SDHC connections . It's getting dark hear now so will wait until tomorrow for some daylight shots but the picture is noticeably better than the XR500 so will give my NX5U a real challenge.

Will be interested to hear how performance is - shouldn't be THAT much better than the XR500, or it really will be giving the NX a run for the money! Although the CX550 is pretty impressive, and they do seem to manage a few tweaks here and there each year...

I'd noticed "lens hood" in the description, that is a mighty substantial one! None shown on the CX560 list, so that really drops the price differential down since a hood like that is around $40 typically from Sony... hmm. and since adding a mic would pretty much drop this right smack dab on top of the MC50U (and that's before the additional features)... wonder if there will be some big price drops or what - this starts coming really close to a "mini-pro" package!

Oh yeah, dumb question, how and where is the tripod mount? After the screwey position on the CX550, wonder if they rehired the tripod screw positioning expert!

Some shots of the bottom, side with the second USB connector, HDMI and the card slot, shot of the back with the mode switch etc.

The LCD is smaller but is very sharp and bright. Will do some more shooting tomorrow its dark now. What is surprising is taking some shots in my dark bedroom the data code shows 21db of gain and the image is pretty clean. Will do some more testing tomorrow against the XR500 and the NX5U.

Well, at least looks to be centered under the camera, side to side, although pretty far forward again...

Somehow I think I've got that USB cable - seems like it's been used on some of their small P&S cameras. Definitley a bit weird having that cable sticking out on the strap the way they do...

I thought the imaging block was pretty much similar to the earlier 500/550 series, but sounds like they've tweaked things even more to get good lo noise and low light performance, guess technology continues to get better!

That whole hood thing now has me thinking the old CX500V's might be time to upgrade to the CX700... I like the CX550's too much to upgrade them, and can't imagine performance imroved that much between generations.

The port is not a standard USB port you are correct Adam. Needs a special cable that is not included though it does mention that the Sony DVD recorders will connect. I don't have one of those so do not know if they have a different cable for this purpose. There may be additional or less connections ? Will look closer this morning now its light. An interesting side note is the camera has not been outside yet but it knows where it is exactly on the map !!!!

Ron Evans

edit: Also the manual that came with the camera is for the CX560/560V and the CX700/700V. The " V " models have GPS.

Reading the manual choices on the CD there is also the CX690E. I loaded this as well as the CX700V to see if there were differences noted. The CX690E looks to be the same model without GPS or internal memory but does have all the other features of the CX700V including viewfinder and lens hood. So the top of this consumer lineup will be the CX690E, CX700E and CX700VE these are all PAL camcorders. The 690 does not appear to be in NTSC as far as I can tell.

The hood will not fit my XR500 not sure about the 550 series though. Price in Canada is $1299Can.

Paul I will try and record some 60P but today is not good weather outside for any shots of outdoor movement. It is dull, mix of rain and snow so not very pleasant. Could take a few days for the weather to clear up then I will try and get something interesting that makes 60P worthwhile. So far indoors I see little difference as expected.

Comparing to the XR500 and NX5U the colour seems to be a little lower easy to bring up to the same in Edius by adding about 5% to chroma then they match more closely. Wide angle is very wide compared to even the NX5U. The downside so far is that everything is in a menu. I would have like the low lux to be a switch like the XR500 but its buried in a menu.

I think this should have the customizable menu (unlike the XR500), so you can put up to 6 favorite buttons on the first "page" that comes up - that feature came back with the CX500 (released after the XR500), and unless they changed the menus again, should be present.

I think you and that other lucky guy in Canada must have gotten a couple they let out early, congrats on that!

Interesting observations on the model #'s, sounds like Sony has a "EU only" version in the 690, I suppose they figure the 560 serves the same basic purpose for the rest of us... have yet to actually SEE a "non-V" version of the cameras with GPS feature in the spec list, I really wonder if they exist (the 690 would be a "first", as a slightly dumbed down 700).